[asterisk-biz] Skype for Asterisk.

[Drew Gibson]

Alex Balashov wrote:
> It may just be my profound ignorance of the merits of Skype, but I am 
> not sure what the benefit here is or why it is desirable or beneficial.
>   

Although there may be technical benefits, I believe the greater benefit 
is more on the marketing side.

> It seems to me that Skype and Asterisk provide elements of VoIP 
> solutions and service at very different echelons of the business market 
> and are intended for very different purposes.  In other words, the sort 
> of people that use Skype and benefit from Skype precisely for what it is 
> on the front-end side are unlikely to be using Asterisk.
>
>   


Skype is a nicely packaged consumer product.
Asterisk is a cardboard box of obscure parts with no instruction manual 
and no visible consumer presence.

So bridging those two worlds _is_ the big benefit.

Skype users don't use Asterisk since Skype has always been an island 
(albeit a large and highly visible island) in the VoIP world. This 
bridge joins Skype to our world in an "official" way. Managers can feel 
warm and fuzzy about it.
The majority of "The Great-Unwashed User Population" has heard of Skype 
and many have used it. Even if they haven't, they think they understand 
what it is.
Traveling Dilbert's Bosses can now forward their phones to their Skype. 
They can phone their colleagues directly from their Skype. They can 
understand this and, more importantly, relate to it. Warm and Fuzzies 
all round!

It's an opportunity to capitalize on those Warm and Fuzzies to sell our 
services either to internal clients of our PBX or as service providers 
and consultants.

> Maybe this is sounding a lot like, "Nobody needs more than 640 kB of 
> RAM!" -- so, I'll shut up now.  :)
>
>   

My first "personal computer" had 1k of ram (yes, 1024 bytes), so I'll 
shut up too!

regards,

Drew


-- 
Drew Gibson

Systems Administrator
OANDA Corporation
www.oanda.com